NSW Police issues warning on 3D printed guns

[SecularMotion]

New South Wales Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione today issued a warning on the potential for 3D printed guns to be used in serious crimes in the state.

The NSW Police revealed that the force has created and tested two 3D-printed firearms. The police used the Liberator pistol blueprints produced by US-firm Defense Distributed. The original plans for the gun were downloaded more than 100,000 times before the company pulled them from its site under pressure from the US State Department.

Police believe that despite this, the files are still circulating.

The commissioner said that a Liberator pistol had experienced a catastrophic misfire during testing. The failure would have been capable of seriously injuring the person using the firearm, the police chief said.

http://www.techworld.com.au/article/462774/nsw_police_issues_warning_3d_printed_guns/

[NightWatcher]

1. Zip guns are more dangerous and have been around forever

Yet I see no gnashing of teeth over them.

[Sheepshank]

2. So we should compound the problem by adding more misfiring weapons on the streets?

like a 15, 20, or even 35 year old knows about this problem?

Fot those that advocate doing nothing because something *else* is already being done....it's insane.

[MineralMan]

4. No, we should not be promoting more homemade firearms

on the street. There are plenty of plans to build homemade firearms on the Internet. All are available to anyone with a computer or tablet. All are dangerous. The printed guns are no different. Stupid people want homemade firearms. They'll make them, I suppose, one way or another.

[MineralMan]

3. Zip guns have pretty much been illegal for a long, long time.

Part of the reason is that they're not safe to fire. Now, that doesn't mean people don't make zip guns, either. As I have written a number of times, I built a nifty zip gun on a bet, using nothing but parts from a local hardware store and an electric drill. It fired .25 ACP ammunition, and worked just fine. It wasn't actually dangerous to the person firing it, but it certainly would be dangerous if aimed at a person nearby. I wouldn't publish plans for it, but zip gun plans are all over the Internet.

The 3D printer pistol may or may not be safe to fire. It probably depends on the materials used to print it. But, like any homemade firearm, it's likely to be dangerous to someone it's pointed at. That's the problem, just as it is with zip guns.

[Nimajneb Nilknarf]

5. As a Publisher it's easy for me to see what's going on here.

People have been making firearms in smithys and barns for centuries; out of metal. Firearms that are durable and reliable. Many of the weapons used in the American Revolution were made in America under crude conditions. This practice continues today.

The frenzy of outrage over "3D printed" guns is the product of propaganda. It was manufactured, not so much by politicians but by the publishers themselves it seems, in order to get the attention of the public and sell more newspapers and their electronic counterparts. That increases the value of advertising space that is sold to those who make everything from candy to male dysfunction remedies.

Really, this story is a flash in the pan.